Shelter From the Storm
by Bella Kundu
Summary: Mark's version of his first day in Seattle. Now continues with Mark's return to Seattle in Season 3.
1. Foreigner

Disclaimer: I do not own Grey's Anatomy. Everything belongs to the creators of the show.

* * *

><p><strong>Foreigner<strong>

The rain was streaking down the glass in long rivulets that branched and reconvened, each separate stream pulsing and rippling like a living animal. Beyond the window was a parking lot slick with puddles that were pitted with raindrops. Along the length of the front of the hospital was an impressive glass corridor high above the entrance, flanked with brick walls on either side. Dr. Sloan peered up at the heavens which seemed to be opening themselves upon Seattle, and, with a sigh of resignation, shrugged into his jacket, pulling the zipper up to his chin. His fingers lingered on the car door for a moment before he forced himself to wrench it open and dart out into the torrent of rain.

Ducking his head, he ran the short distance to the door and moved into the dry warmth. He closed his eyes and breathed in the sterile, slightly abrasive smell of hospital. It wasn't an odor most people enjoyed, but of course he had long ago grown used to it, and here, in this wet, green, foreign city, the smell was at least familiar, like a bit of New York he'd been able to bring with him. In fact, it was the only bit that he still had. The rest of his old life had somehow found its way here, to Washington of all places, and he had inevitably followed. Even as a child his footsteps had never strayed far from the path Derek forged. Realizing abruptly that he was standing motionless with his eyes closed like a fool in the lobby of a large and famous hospital, he quickly shook himself and set off in search of the nurses' station. If anybody knew where to find the Shepherds they would be there.

Looking around, his attention was immediately captured by a thin blond in scrubs with long legs and a slight frame who leaned against the counter of the nurse's station. The corners of his mouth twitched upward as he thought that maybe it wasn't quite so imperative that he find Addison _right_ away after all.

He moved up behind the woman quietly and then reached out in front of her to point at the volley of serious conditions listed on a patient's chart, saying in a carefully causal voice, "That guy's pretty much a goner, huh?"

"Sensitivity. I like that in a stranger," she said, looking up at him, her eyes playful. "Are you new in town?"

He grinned back and answered, "Visiting. Confounded by the rain and it's only my first day in town."

"You get used to it," she said conversationally, and then flipped the patient's chart shut and began to walk away. Dr. Sloan frowned a bit, disappointed at how quickly she'd lost interest in him. He wasn't accustomed to being ignored.

Unable to resist, he remarked in a purposefully gravelly voice, "Makes me want to stay in bed all day."

The woman turned back, smiling wickedly. "We just met and already you're talking about bed. Not very subtle."

"Subtle's never been my strong suit." Already able to see that this was somebody he could get along with, he leaned in and said conspiratorially, "So. Do you ever go out with coworkers?"

A queer expression full of hidden meaning flitted across her face and she answered after a thoughtful pause, "I… um… make it a rule not to."

Suddenly it dawned on him. It was _her_. The mistress. _Derek's_ mistress. His face glowed with recognition. Already his interest in her was dissolving into playful sisterly affection, but he kept up the banter, falling into a comfortable routine. "Then I am _so _glad that I don't work here."

"Are you hitting on me?" she asked, her eyes twinkling. "In a hospital?"

"Would that be wrong?"

She shook her head at him as though he was hopeless and extended her hand, offering a real smile of friendship. "Meredith."

He reached out to grasp her small hand in his large warm one when-

There was a blur of navy scrubs, a white coat, and black hair, and sudden pain blossomed across his cheek accompanied with the huff of someone exhaling loudly. He stumbled and hung on to the edge of the counter, his vision blurring and his eyes smarting. In the background shock and mild disapproval mingled in Meredith's voice as she said "Derek! What the hell was that?"

"That, " Derek answered, quiet rage burning in his voice, "was Mark."

* * *

><p>AN: This is my first Grey's Anatomy fanfiction. I hope you enjoyed it. Right now I'm unsure of whether I'll continue this or just leave it as a one-shot, so let me know what you think. Reviews = love, and whether you liked this story or not I want to hear your opinion, so please review. Thanks for reading.


	2. The Dirty Mistresses

**The Dirty Mistresses**

The initial commotion was like watching a film in fast-forward - little glimpses and fragments filtering through to register in Mark's brain. Addison appeared out of nowhere and was alternating between glaring at Mark and shooting concerned, anxious glances over at Derek. Derek stood glaring, breathing quietly and cradling his hand against his chest, occasionally flexing it and wincing, impervious to the words the Chief of Surgery was hurling at him. Meredith had her hand on Mark's forearm and was saying something about stitches. Mark stood, still partially bracing himself on the counter of the nurses' station, one hand pressed against the angry red mark across his cheekbone.

"C'mon," Meredith was saying, "It'll only take a minute, let's go." She tugged a little on the cuff of Mark's jacket.

Mark had shoved off from the counter and begun to follow her blindly before he lowered his hand from his face and looked at the red smear on it for a moment before saying in wonderment, "I'm bleeding."

"Of course you are. And you call yourself a surgeon."

"Where's the exam room?"

"I'm taking you there now."

Mark caught sight of a row of faces peering at him from around a doorway. "You interns are always so nosey?" he muttered.

"Only when it comes to attendings brawling with their famous plastic surgeon ex-best friends."

Meredith pulled open a door and with a nod of her head indicated that he should take a seat on the exam table. Drawers were opened and shut, and a moment later she was back, carefully dressing his face.

"You know, Derek and I did always have the same taste in women," he found himself saying obscurely.

"Excuse me?"

Mark looked over at her from the corner of his eye. "You're Derek's lusty intern, right?" A little smiled played at edge of her lips for a moment. "I heard about you all the way back in New York. You're famous." She chuckled, and Mark glanced down at his hands in his lap, wishing for a fleeting instant that he was still in New York, comfortably with Addison and dry and not being punched by the man who had practically been family since they were ten.

But Meredith was talking again, and he focused on the words she was saying because he was _not _in New York, and it _was _raining outside, and Meredith's cold hands did feel nice against his throbbing face as she told him that they had a lot in common.

"We're the dirty mistresses," Mark declared, marveling, even as he spoke the words, at how Seattle had already made him desperate enough to have to seek out companionship on the grounds of adultery.

Meredith hadn't answered yet, and he was beginning to worry that he'd offended what seemed to be the only person in Washington who didn't loath him, when she replied with a small smile, "I suppose we are," and reached back for another piece of gauze as though it was something she heard every day. Mark began to smile, but stopped when the movement caused the gash in his cheek to twinge. Instead he grinned at her with his eyes, and her eyes twinkled back at him.

"You know, it's funny," Mark stated, turning his face suddenly towards her. "De-" He stopped talking when Meredith abruptly grasped his chin firmly in her hand and yanked his head back around.

"Derek walks in on me with his wife," Mark continued, wondering in the back of his mind why he was sharing this information with a stranger, "actually in the throes, and he just turns around and walks away." Mark turned his face to look at Meredith again, entirely sincere now. "But he sees me so much as talking to you, and I'm on the ground bleeding." He gazed at her earnestly, looking up and down her body and then intently at her face, and he didn't miss the glimmer of hope that crossed it. "Interesting, don't you think?"

Instead of answering, Meredith turned back to the supplies, and Mark knew that she was pleased, and that she most certainly was interested. He followed her movements with his eyes, and noticed the small congregation of interns clustered outside the glass window. He smirked, and decided that since he had an audience, he might as well show off.

As Meredith reached towards him holding a suturing kit and mirror, he pulled his head back slightly and said with faux indignation, "What do you think you're doing?"

"You need stitches," and her hand moved toward his face again.

"I know. Hold the mirror." It took all his strength not to burst out laughing at the skepticism that shone through her eyes. She handed the instruments to him and slowly raised the mirror, a challenge in the set of her mouth and the way her eyebrows arched.

Mark took the sutures from her hand and leaned forward, observing the curious interns in the mirror's reflection as he made quick work of the cut.

From outside the room her heard the faint words, "Why is he suturing his own face?" and then, from a different, female voice, "To turn me on."

He smirked as he tied off the last knot and then scrutinized his handiwork for a moment before saying with some pride, "Won't even leave a scar."

He looked up at Meredith, expecting a reaction, and saw that she was staring, her lips slightly parted and her eyes wide and surprised.

"Admit it, you're impressed."

She shook herself slightly, and then nodded emphatically.

"See, I'm not _just _a dirty mistress. But I need an x-ray for fractures. Can you set that up?"

She nodded again and left the exam room. As the door swung shut behind her he faintly caught the phrase "McSexy" and couldn't help but be flattered.

* * *

><p>AN: Thank you so much for the positive feedback and suggestions from the last chapter! I appreciate all the reviews so much. I hope you like this chapter. I'm very curious to hear what you think, so please review. Thank you all so much for reading.


	3. Round Two

**Round Two**

Mark took down his images from the light board and tried to resist the urge to rub his hand over his face. He swung the door open, and as he did so, nearly walked into an intern and patient.

"Sorry," he mumbled reflexively, reaching his hand out to steady himself and the patient.

"No problem. I don't generally go unnoticed," For the first time, Mark actually looked at the boy, and had to fall back on his years of plastic surgery experience to maintain a stoic expression. Below sandy hair that fell into the boy's blue eyes was a face purpled as though bruised, a face deformed by a tumor - a too broad nose, cheekbones that projected outward awkwardly, a shapeless, grotesque face.

"It helps if you think of him as a lion," the intern with him stated bluntly. "Hey, his idea, not mine," she protested at Dr. Sloan's look of disapproval.

Mark looked harder at the face, and from it he began to picture new lines of flesh, filling out the sunken cheeks, giving definition to the chin. "Wait. Can I see his scans?"

Christina shrugged indifferently and he followed her back into the room from which he'd just emerged.

As the scans appeared on the computer screens, Mark rubbed his hand over the stubble of his beard and said thoughtfully, "I'd like to see his parents about a reconstructive surgery."

Five minutes later, Mark stood in Jacob's room, looking into the anxious faces of his parents who had just seen a glimmer of hope and were half afraid that it had only been a mirage. "It's precision work," Dr. Sloan cautioned. "It won't be easy but-"

"Dr. Sloan. Can I help you with something," a cold voice spoke in a tone that didn't really ask a question.

Mark didn't need to turn around to know who spoke, and before he could come up with an explanation for Derek, Jacob was saying, his face lit up with elation, "He says he can fix my face. He says he can make me look like normal!"

The back of Mark's neck prickled uncomfortably and he angled his face warily towards Dr. Shepherd, wondering for a second if Derek would hit him in front of a patient. What he saw was worse. The attack had been an impulse, an instinct, too quick for consideration. But there was no mistaking that Derek meant every ounce of the clear, cold hatred in his hard blue eyes.

"Can I speak with you for a moment, _Dr._ Sloan?"

"Of course." Mark crossed his arms and waited.

"In the Chief's office."

* * *

><p>"Gentlemen?" Richard Webber asked, staring hard at Mark's face as though searching for more injuries.<p>

"There's a boy with a tumor growing in his skull. With reconstructive surgery I can repair his face. It's a rare procedure, never been done successfully before now, but his parents are open to it," Mark spoke hurriedly, hoping explain the situation before Derek had a chance to cut in.

"Yes, and that surgery could potentially complicate the brain operation he came here for. Sloan is not a doctor at this hospital, and he cannot steal my patients!"

"Derek, we do what is best for the patient. 'Stealing' should not be a concern of yours," Dr. Webber reminded sternly.

"How could stealing not be a concern of mine?" Derek countered, his voice raising as he gestured angrily. "That crack whore stole my wife, my family, my everything. I moved halfway across the country to leave behind the life he ruined, and I will not have that happen to _my _patient and _my _career," he snapped furiously, his body shifting into a predatory, feral stance.

"I hardly stole Addison from you; you'd become absent, disinterested. She deserved someone who cared. You'd lost your claim on her long before what happened," Mark argued.

"That is not the point!" Derek roared.

"The point is the kid wants his face fixed and I want to do it."

"No, the point is you want to get published!" Derek's finger jabbed at Mark in accusation, and for some reason Mark found that more painful than the blow across his face.

Something in Derek's expression and tone took Mark back to every petty argument they'd had as children. A flame kindled in him. He'd been considerate of Derek's right to be mad, but suddenly he didn't care about what Derek deserved anymore.

"Well, yeah," Mark hissed, his voice now matching Derek's in anger. "And I'm guessing your Chief of Surgery does, too." Mark jerked his head at the Chief, and then regained control of himself, directing his attention back to Dr. Webber and saying smoothly, "You know how the press loves a good before and after shot, Richard."

"Call me Dr. Webber," the Chief ordered, and Mark dropped his gaze, ducking his head. Even as schoolmates, Derek had always, always won. Despite the fame and the skill and the years, nothing had changed.

The Chief turned to Dr. Shepherd and said, "Derek, out of friendship to you I'd very much like to say no to this… jackass."

"Please don't say it," Derek whispered.

"If you can get the parents to sign the consent forms," Dr. Webber finished, nodding his permission to Dr. Sloan.

Mark tried to feel triumph, but somehow, with his former best friend glaring at him from across the room and thunder cracking overhead, it didn't feel like a victory. "Round two goes to the jackass," he muttered bitterly.

* * *

><p>AN: I struggled to write this chapter and make it interesting but true to the show and keep it in character all at the same time. So I hope that it turned out all right. I've already started writing the next chapter and it's much better; I'm very excited about it. Thanks for reading, and please review.


	4. Alone

**Alone**

Mark followed Derek out of the Chief's office, making sure that Derek passed through the door before him because he didn't want to feel Derek's eyes boring into his back. He wondered briefly if throwing the surgery would have repaired anything between the two of them, but a sad glance at Derek dissolved the fantasy - this went beyond their careers. Had things been that simple, Mark would have forgone the operation immediately. He ducked his head and ran his hand over the short graying curls that covered the back of his head, a habitual gesture of discomfort and disappointment.

Abruptly, Derek stopped short in front of him, his face stony, staring at Addison, who was waking down the airy glass-encased corridor, teetering slightly in her stiletto shoes. Derek made a small noise of disgust in the back of his throat that only Mark heard, and then turned on his heel and walked away in the opposite direction, his jaw stiff, as if he was grinding his teeth.

Mark began to move towards Addison, a greeting on his lips, when she, too, spun around with an exasperated sigh and turned away. The situation reminded Mark oddly of the night Derek had walked in on them together. Mark must have run over the scenario a million times in his mind - the initial shock, the shame, and, most overbearingly, the instantaneous regret. But he'd never replayed to himself the minutes after, when Derek had walked away without a word because words were unnecessary - the betrayal was written all over his face. How Addison had run after Derek without looking twice at Mark - chasing the man she'd really wanted all along, leaving Mark entirely alone. The white sterile walls and glass windows of Seattle Grace couldn't be more different from the small, homey details that had decorated Derek and Addison's bedroom in New York, and yet here he was in the exact same circumstance - with nobody.

He walked faster, easily catching up to Addison with his long, smooth strides. "Aw, come on, you're not even a little bit happy to see me?" Mark asked, carefully keeping any telling emotion out of his voice.

"Go home," she snapped, looking at him over her shoulder but continuing to walk away. "Whatever you came here to do, just drop it and leave."

Mark was astonished at how rapidly she'd shed their relationship, like it was an outfit that had gone out of style. He couldn't keep the hurt out of his voice when he said, "Hey, we all made mistakes, Addison, all three of us, but somehow-" she tried to interrupt but he forged on, the words he'd refrained from saying for so long pouring from him now that they'd begun, "-somehow _I _lost my best friend and the woman I loved." He winced as those last three words that he hadn't intended to say slipped from his lips.

Addison, at least, had stopped and turned to face him. "Please," she said, holding up her hands, palms out, as if to keep him from getting too close, "don't say that."

Understanding kindled in Mark's eyes, and rapidly became overshadowed by pain. "He doesn't know how we felt." It wasn't a question. Her eyelids fluttered shut and she sighed deeply, which Mark rightfully took as a confirmation. "He doesn't know you stayed with me after he left? How do you expect to work out a marriage if you can't even be honest with him?" he asked quietly.

Addison looked down and away, avoiding the question. When she looked up, it was to voice a question of her own. "Why are you here?"

Mark tried not to flinch from her words. "For one reason," he began, intending to make some sort of casual inappropriate innuendo. His façade crumbled and, baring himself to her, he whispered, "To bring you home." She looked away. "I miss you, Addison." Spoken out loud and hanging suspended in the air, the words hurt.

"I'm in love with my husband," she protested, her blue-green eyes flitting back and forth, anything to avoid eye contact.

Mark looked at her hard, trying to make her _feel _how earnest he was. "But he's not in love with you. He's in love with that intern and he's not even trying to hide it. Why would you want to stick around for that?" Mark realized that, for the first time in his life, he was begging.

Addison finally met his eyes, and her red lips parted, and for a moment Mark was sure she would say that she was coming home. But instead she gave a small shake of her head and walked away wordlessly. Mark didn't try to chase her this time. He watched her retreating figure until it disappeared between the pair of double doors at the end of the hallway. She didn't look back as she left Mark alone, the dim hope gradually fading from his eyes.

* * *

><p>AN: I'm really nervous about posting this chapter because I'm not sure if I kept Mark in character. I hope you all think it turned out all right. I give a special thanks to Juni and ClaudyStream for consistently giving me encouraging reviews for each chapter. Thanks to everybody for reading, and please review!


	5. A Face at Last

**A Face at Last**

"I need you to-"

"Count backwards from ten, I know," Jacob interrupted Dr. Shepherd. "I've done this before." He gave both Derek and Mark a friendly grin before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath from the mask over his mouth and nose. "Ten. Nine. Wait a minute." He waved his hand at the mask and Derek moved it away as Jacob leaned forward, propped up on his elbows.

Jacob's eyes found Dr. Sloan's. "You're going to fix my face?"

"Yes. As soon as Dr. Shepherd fixes your brain."

"You're not going to let him tell you not to, right?" Jacob's eyes cut to Derek for a moment and then were back, riveted on Dr. Sloan's face. "You have to do it."

"You can trust Dr. Shepherd, you know. He's the best neurosurgeon in the country and he wouldn't prevent me from doing what a patient asks. But yes, no matter what he does during the surgery, you'll have a brand new face when you wake up."

Jacob nodded, apparently satisfied, and lay back down on the cold surgical table. "Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven…" his voice trailed off and his eyelids drifted shut.

Derek looked over at Mark and said in a harsh voice, "You don't interfere during my part of the operation. Jacob wants his face so he's going to have it, but you don't touch the patient until I'm done."

"I won't." Mark had always known better than anybody what his best friend needed, and he knew that now he had to stay out of the way. He backed up until he was aligned with the row of interns, making himself as small as possible.

Derek looked up at the full gallery of watching doctors. "It's a beautiful day to save lives. Let's get started."

The high pitched whining sound of the drill filled the OR and Derek lifted out a smooth white circle of Jacob's skull and dropped it into the metal basin the nurse held for him. There were a few moments of calm as Derek began to operate, and then Derek said with sudden urgency. "Alright, give me a sponge."

The steady beeping of the monitor took off, flying, the rapid pace that haunted the dreams of doctors unleashing a flurry of activity from Dr. Shepherd.

Panic seeping through his voice, Derek said, "Alright… alright… hang another unit of blood."

"No carotid," someone said as Derek worked furiously over the boy's head, whose hair was becoming rapidly stained with blood. "We've got defib."

"He's losing a lot of blood," Derek said feverishly, seemingly unable to give direction.

Mark stared around the room, at everybody waiting for Dr. Shepherd to say what he needed them to do. Mark's body took an involuntary step toward the dying boy. _But Derek had told him not to touch the patient, and he owed that much to Derek…_ Mark looked at the boy on the table, the black lines that guided the new face prominent against his pale skin. "The paddles, get the paddles," Mark commanded, and then he was in charge, he was moving swiftly to Jacob's side and his hands were over the boy's chest and he was pumping Jacob's heart for him. "Charge to two hundred."

He took the paddles from someone, and Derek was repeating, "Stand back, stand back," and in a corner of Mark's mind he wondered whether Derek was talking to him or about the defibrillator, but then he shouted "Clear!" and the Jacob's torso arched from the table and then slumped back down again and a long, continuous, beeping noise filled the room. Time stopped moving because the boy was flat lining and he wouldn't wake up to a new face and Mark had broken his word to Jacob and to Derek and he hated all that Seattle had done to him in the few hours he'd been there.

He tore his mask from his face, snapping the strings rather than untying the knots, and yanked the surgical cap from his head viciously as he strode out of the room. He peeled off the clean gloves he hadn't had the chance to use and curled his hands into fists, letting his nails bite into the flesh of his palms, relishing the stinging sensation. Through the glass wall he saw Derek, still inside the OR, pulling off his head gear and slamming it with unnecessary force against the tray of instruments.

Mark walked quickly to the locker room, nearly running, as though if he moved fast enough he could escape his own mind. At his private practice in New York, people came trying to acquire a body that wasn't theirs and then reappeared a year later, still dissatisfied. They seemed dead inside, always wanting what they didn't have. Jacob, with his sickly pallor and deficient bone structure had been so full of life and amusement, and all he'd wanted was a real face, and Mark hadn't been able to give even that.

Mark opened the locker the Chief had temporarily assigned to him and purposely pulled too hard, letting the door swing too far back and bang loudly against the lockers next to it. He sighed. Making loud noises wouldn't help. He stripped his shirt off over his head, and leaned his forehead against the cool, hard surface of the lockers. The cold metal felt good on his sweaty face, so he closed his eyes and slumped further into the locker.

The door opened with a click. "Dr. Sloan?"

He raised his head and turned around tiredly, his shirt still balled up in his hands, trying to feel the expression on his face from the inside out, wondering what it looked like to the two interns standing in the doorway.

"Yeah?" he asked huskily, wishing they would go away.

"Jacob never got to have his face repaired," Alex said.

"I know," he mumbled, turning back to the locker. "That's surgery."

"We were wondering if you could do the procedure now. He'd want to look nice at the funeral," Christina took over, shooting Alex a glance that seemed to ask how he could be so stupid.

Mark looked down at the navy blue fabric in his hands and fiddled with it, slightly hopeful. "Yeah. That we can do."

Moments later, Mark stood in the OR again, now cleared of machines and nurses, no more tubes sticking out of Jacob at odd angles. "Alright," he spoke in a hushed voice. "I got the parents' approval."

Alex and Christina nodded and reached up to pull their masks over their faces.

"You don't-" Mark began, and then wished he hadn't spoken because to say the words was to admit that Jacob was dead. "You don't really need those." They slowly lowered their hands, and Mark turned to the body on the table. He took a deep breath and held out his hand. "Scalpel."

* * *

><p>Alex and Christina had finished and left the OR. Mark had told them that he'd clean up. He touched Jacob's now sculpted cheekbone lightly with one gloved finger. "I kept my promise," he whispered. "When you… wake up, you'll have your new face." Mark paused and swallowed. "And let me tell you, Jacob, you look more like a lion than ever." Mark offered the corpse a small, sad smile, and brushed Jacob's hair out of his face, which was peaceful at last. For the first time since he'd boarded a plane to Washington, Mark was glad that he'd come to Seattle.<p>

* * *

><p>AN: This was probably the most difficult chapter yet to write because it was hard to describe the surgery. I'm very curious to see what you think of it. Reviews are love; please review!


	6. When Waiting Ends

**When Waiting Ends**

Mark stood in front of the elevator doors, tapping his foot against the floor with a slow, steady beat. He pulled his fingers through his hair. Mark could see the dusky sky - not raining for once - through the huge glass windows of the hospital. If he craned his neck, Mark just managed to glimpse the thin peak of the Space Needle. His taught muscles relaxed a little; the tall, imposing building would have fit right into the skyline of Manhattan.

He turned his head when the elevator stopped before him, the doors sliding open to reveal Derek and Addison, her hand raised as if she'd been about to rub his shoulder. Mark's moment of peace evaporated and he wondered what they'd been doing before the doors opened. He looked down as he stepped inside the elevator, shoving his hands into his pockets, feeling their eyes covertly glaring at him. Derek and Addison moved aside to make room, but the manner of their motion radiated hostility. Mark chanced a glance at Derek's face. It was still just as angry and betrayed as it had been in the morning, but there was something else - something Mark recognized because he knew it was on his face, too - the expression of having lost a patient.

"Don't beat yourself up," Mark said, trying for the tone of companionship that they'd shared before everything had come crashing down. What happened to Jacob really _hadn't_ been Derek's fault.

"I think I'll take the stairs," Derek muttered, beginning to walk out of the elevator.

"Aw, come on," Mark said angrily, throwing out his arm to keep the doors from closing on his last chance to reconcile. "How come you can forgive her but not me?"

"I didn't forgive her," Derek snapped furiously, his eyes ablaze. "And with you I have no obligation to try." Recoiling from the words like he'd been punched again, Mark failed to find anything other than loathing for both him and Addison in Derek's eyes. Mark let the doors slide shut because he knew it was what Derek wanted and he had no right to deny him anything.

He turned to Addison, who had pressed herself against the wall of the elevator and leaned the back of her head against it. "Your marriage is over, Addison," he told her gently. "All you have to do is admit it." He stepped closer to her, and whispered low, "Then you can come back home with me."

Looking at her, Mark could plainly see that already New York was no longer home to her, but he couldn't make himself stop. "I'm going to the bar across the street," he said, raising his hand and brushing the back of it softly across her porcelain cheek. He tilted his head towards Addison, intending to kiss her, but her eyes were pleading for him not to, and an expression that flitted across her face made her seem suddenly breakable, as if a mere touch would shatter her, so instead Mark drew his thumb along her jaw line and let it linger there for a moment before he whispered entreatingly, "Meet me there," and forced himself to walk away from her.

He bit his lip as he trudged toward the doors of the hospital, worrying the delicate skin with the edge of his teeth. At the doors he stopped short and turned back abruptly, pacing. If he left the hospital now, he was leaving Derek behind for good. He shook his head, impatient with himself. _You hate Seattle_, Mark reminded himself. _You should be happy to leave, even if you're not leaving with Addison. _Besides, seeing Derek again would change nothing, and probably make things worse. Every interaction with him only made Mark ache to cling to this rain drenched city for longer. Derek had walked away from him so many times today. If Derek had wanted anything to do with him, Mark would've known it before now. He whirled around and marched out of hospital into the clean smell that follows on the heels of rain.

Mark crossed the street with long strides and pushed open the door to the bar, a cluster of bells over his head tinkling to announce his entrance. He took a deep breath and looked around the room full of strangers. A silky mane of dirty blonde hair caught his eye for the second time that day. He walked slowly over to Meredith and hesitated this time instead of jumping right in. "This seat taken?"

"I guess not," she sighed, looking up at him doubtfully, no longer flirtatious or playful. She returned her gaze to her hands and resumed fidgeting with her fingers and staring blankly at nothing.

Mark looked at her carefully, and noticed that her expression was softened, injured. "You look sad," he remarked.

Her eyes flickered to his face and then were directed to her hands again, almost like she was afraid to look at him. "I just saw my father for the first time in twenty years," she said, still not looking at Mark.

"How'd _that_ go?" Mark said with a touch of bitterness, thinking of his own parents. It had been more than twenty years since he'd spoken to them. Some nights he held the phone in his hand, his finger tracing their phone number across the buttons without pressing them. Mark knew that his parents would have nothing to say to him and in truthfulness, Mark was aware that he wouldn't know what to say to them. That didn't prevent the possibility from haunting him. He looked again at Meredith Grey, so tiny and seemingly fragile, yet so much more braver than he was, brave enough to face her parents.

"It could have gone better," she admitted. "What are you still doing here?" Meredith asked in an obvious effort to change the subject, and somehow the question didn't feel like she was saying that he didn't belong.

This time it was Mark's turn to avoid eye contact as he gestured vaguely in a helpless sort of way with the hand cupped around his drink. "I'm hopin' Addison shows up," he admitted, realizing how pathetic his actions sounded when they were verbalized.

Finally they both stole a glance at each other at the same time and their eyes met.

"You're still in love with her?" Meredith asked, seeming surprised and oddly concerned.

"You're still in love with _him_," Mark pointed out, raising his eyebrows at her, avoiding the question as he wondered idly what version of his behavior she'd heard from Derek. He gave a little start and whipped his head around when the bells above the door announced someone entering. He searched hopefully for Addison's deep red hair, but instead it was a couple holding hands. He turned back around, only a little disappointed.

"She won't show, you know?" Meredith said in a voice tinged with pity. Even keeping his eyes fixed on his drink, Mark could feel the sympathy in Meredith's gaze.

"No?" he asked, imagining Meredith waiting in this bar for Derek.

"He's not the kind of guy you leave if you can help it," Meredith elaborated, and Mark realized that she really _was _still in love with him.

"What if you're wrong?" Mark said slowly, a light growing in the back of his eyes as he looked back up at her. Meredith was so easy to talk to. "What if just this once, life comes down on the side of the dirty mistresses?" he asked, full-out grinning now, his whole face lit up.

Meredith smiled back, but the glow didn't touch her eyes. "Wouldn't that be something." Then, in a more serious tone, "Don't expect it."

"So optimistic," Mark snorted sarcastically.

"I'm dark and twisty," she grinned, and then added teasingly, "So are you."

"I know," Mark sighed. Then he whirled around as the bells on the doors jingled again. This time it was a group of loudly joking men. He sighed and rubbed his hand impatiently over his beard.

Meredith gave him a long look, and called to Joe, "Another drink for Dr. Sloan." Then to Mark, she added, "You'll need it if you're waiting for her."

"You've done this before, haven't you?" Mark asked, looking at her swiftly before switching his gaze back to the amber hue of his refilled drink.

"I don't like to see history repeat itself." Meredith watched Mark out of the corner of her eye in a speculative way, as if she was measuring him up for something. "Addison had gotten divorce papers, you know," she said at last. "Derek didn't sign them. If you'd come earlier, things might have been different."

Mark shook his head. "She can't see what's right in front of her because she's in it." He smirked mischievously and couldn't resist adding, "Just like you and Derek don't see each other."

Meredith rolled her eyes. "I'm just his dirty mistress."

"Don't be so sure. He _did_ punch me for you, you realize?"

Meredith shot him a playful glare and smacked him lightly on the back of his head. "Enough about Derek. Waiting for Derek's wife with you isn't exactly my ideal evening, so behave."

"You're waiting with me?" Mark asked in surprise, looking up at Meredith who was sipping at her drink as if it had been a perfectly natural thing to say.

Meredith looked straight at him. "When I waited for Derek here, my people waited with me. But you have no people in Seattle. And the way you jump every time the door opens is kind of pathetic. So yes, I'm staying," she declared firmly.

* * *

><p>After what seemed to be an eternity, Mark was turning away disappointed, yet again, from the door that was swinging shut with a ringing of the bells. Meredith was running her pinky finger around the rim of her glass - probably absorbed in thoughts of her father. She'd ignored Mark for the past hour or more but had nevertheless remained faithfully by his side the entire time, and Mark was grateful for both the companionship and the silence. He knew better than to try to thank her. The bells chimed again and he spun towards the door just as eagerly as he had the first twenty times. <em>Surely, this time<em>… It wasn't Addison. Something about Mark changed, as though a flip had been switched, and suddenly he wasn't hopeful anymore. He snuck a look at Meredith and saw her covertly glancing at him from under lidded eyes. She saw his look and gazed back at her glass, clearly trying to give him privacy.

"She's not going to come," Mark realized aloud.

"I know." Meredith's voice was sympathetic, but not in an uncomfortable way.

"You were right." Mark sounded resigned.

"Yeah, but if you hadn't stayed to see for yourself you'd always be wondering."

Mark pushed back his sleeve to look at his watch. "I have a plane to catch," he said, at a loss for what he should say to this woman, who, despite being dark and twisty, was the closest thing to a friend that he'd found here.

"You know," Meredith began slowly, hesitating as if she wasn't sure that she should continue, "If you ever decided you could live with the rain, and the elevator moments, and the necessity to McName everybody… I wouldn't be surprised if the Chief had a place for you here. After all, you're not just _any _dirty mistress. You're Mark _Sloan_. Who wouldn't want a plastics department run by you? Think about it."

Mark was eternally grateful that she, at least, saw him as who he was - a skilled surgeon. He couldn't help picturing his life here. This didn't have to be the end. If Meredith was right, and it seemed that she generally was, he could have another chance to win back Derek. It was worth the possibility of drowning in rain. But for the time being, nobody in Seattle except for Meredith thought of him as a doctor. To everybody else he was merely the man who'd ruined Derek's life.

Mark stood and shrugged into his jacket. "Maybe someday," he answered, trying not to sound too hopeful, "but for now I'm just McSteamy." His eyes smoldered at Meredith and with a brilliant, flashing grin and the idea of Seattle planted like a tiny but resilient seed in his mind, Mark strode confidently outside into the storm that had just begun.

* * *

><p>AN: I know I deviated from the actual show by not ending on the dirty mistress line, but it seemed to me that Mark's story didn't quite end there and that he deserved a real ending, so I hope nobody minded that. I love the idea of a Mark/Meredith friendship, so I tried to put that into the story without being over-the-top or unrealistic, but I'm not sure if I did alright. I want to hear all your opinions, so please review and tell me what you think!


	7. Room Service

A/N: I accidentally deleted the sequel to this story, so I decided to just re-upload it as part of this story instead, and do away with the epilogue to this. I hope you're all okay with that! Thanks for having patience with all the technical difficulties.

* * *

><p><strong>Room Service (Six Months Later)<strong>

The shrill ringing of a cell phone filled the quiet New York apartment. Mark poked his head out of the refrigerator and snatched the phone off the clean white countertop, glancing briefly at the number that stood out in bold black letters against the backlit touch screen. His eyebrows furrowed as his brain registered a number that he hadn't seen in a year - yet one that he knew by heart. He straightened up, letting the door to the fridge swing shut behind him, the carton of orange juice in his hand forgotten. He held the phone up to his ear and answered in a dazed voice, "Addie?"

"Mark," the voice sounded faint, strangled, and then there was a pause, punctuated only by the sound of soft breathing on the other end of the line. Her voice clung to the sound of his name as though it were a lifeline.

"That you, Addison?"

More silence, and then, "Mark, I need you to come out here now."

"To Seattle?"

"Yes. Today, if you can."

"What happened? Did something happen to Derek?" A creeping concern edged its way into Mark's voice. The hatred Derek harbored towards Mark was only one-way.

"Yes. Well, no!" Addison sighed heavily. "He's fine. Derek's fine, except for the slight detail that he came home today with Meredith Grey's panties in his pocket."

"And you want me to come to Seattle because of that."

"Yes."

"Because Derek has Grey's panties," Mark clarified, bemused at the odd request.

"I know I was… less than hospitable the last time you showed up, but just… just come, okay?" Mark caught the tone of desperation in her voice. He rubbed the back of his head impatiently.

"But Derek-"

"Derek and I won't be married for much longer," Addison said resignedly. "And I moved into a hotel today, so he won't be a concern anymore."

Part of Mark thought that now would be a convenient time to repay the cold shoulder she'd maintained towards him when he'd come to Seattle a few months earlier to win her back, but then he pictured her, alone in a hotel room in a city he knew she disliked as much as he did, reeling from having lost a family of eleven years because of a pair of panties. "I'll be on the next plane out."

* * *

><p>The door to Addison's suite opened before Mark had had time to lower his hand from knocking. "Mark," she half gasped, before falling into his body in a hug that put them in closer proximity than they'd been since she left New York a year ago. She pressed her face against his chest, not seeming to care about how his leather jacket was slick and wet from the rain, or about how the last time she'd seen him she'd flinched from his mere touch.<p>

Mark wrapped his arms around her loosely but drew his head back far enough to see her face, looking down at her with unveiled surprise. She was clad in a fluffy white robe, with bare feet and no makeup, her hair straggling down her back in damp tangled strands.

"You look like a mess, Addie," he murmured quietly, his hand rubbing slow circles across the small of her back.

"I'm just tired," she said. She plastered a smile across her face, but it didn't touch her eyes until she added, "Not _too_ tired," and pressed her hands firmly against the sides of Mark's face and pulled it down to hers for a kiss. Mark sighed against her mouth. This, at least, was familiar territory.

"Aren't you going to invite me in?" he asked in a mock offended tone once they'd pulled apart, raising his eyebrows at her.

Addison stepped back to let him pass into the luxurious hotel room. He ran his eyes over the bottle of champagne on a table by the huge bed and the wine glasses rimmed with gold.

"You came prepared," he observed.

"Go clean up, you just got here. I'll call down to room service for something to eat," Addison encouraged, nodding at the bathroom.

* * *

><p>Mark shut off the hot water that streamed over his bare back and rubbed a towel over the short curls of hair that lay against his forehead as he stepped out of the shower into the steam that filled the room and misted over the mirror. He heard bedsprings squeak faintly a couple of times in the adjacent room and imagined Addison waiting for him on the king sized mattress. Mark swung open the bathroom door and began to wrap the towel he still carried around his waist. When he looked up, Derek was seated on the bed with Addison, looking at Mark with a mixture of disbelief and amusement in his expressive blue eyes. Derek turned back to stare for a moment at Addison, who was looking straight ahead, her jaw set as if she were clenching her teeth, the expression in her eyes closed off, shuttered. Derek spun back around to gaze incredulously at Mark again.<p>

"Oh." Mark stared back, at a loss for what he could say. He looked down at his partially exposed body, suddenly self aware, and tucked in the ends of the loosely hanging towel before raising his head again. "Well this is awkward." Mark couldn't help grinning mischievously.

For an instant Mark thought Derek would shout, but instead a smile broke across his face and he leaned over to Addison and plucked the glass of champagne from between her limp fingers. He took a sip and then looked at the sunshine colored liquid pensively for a brief moment. "Ah," Derek sighed calmly. "I feel much better now." He handed the glass back to Addison, who accepted it as though in a daze, and walked out of the suite, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Mark ran his fingers through his rapidly drying hair. "What happened to Derek not being a concern anymore?" he asked casually, hoping that teasing would pull Addison out from behind the wall she'd built around herself and diffuse the tension that was almost palpable in the air. The effort was in vain; she didn't move.

"Aw, c'mon," Mark tried again. "It was inevitable. You knew he'd go back to his intern eventually."

A muscle in Addison's cheek twitched.

Taking that as a good sign, Mark stepped closer to her. "And now you're free to see me."

Her eyes flickered to him and back.

"And who wouldn't want that?" Mark concluded, moving closer. "You know I'm a catch."

"Mark, you're not helping," Addison snapped, her fiery passion returning with a vengeance, her eyes blazing with annoyance.

"There you are!" Mark exclaimed, triumphant that he'd pestered her into some sort of reaction. "I thought I'd lost you there for a minute."

" Stop. Just stop." Addison pressed her fingers to her temples and shut her eyes. When her eyelids flew open again it was to order imperiously, "Stop talking, Mark, and come here. You're terrible at talking."

Mark didn't need to be told twice. He took the last long stride to the bed, and then she was in his arms, and he could smell and touch and taste her, and even though Mark knew that nothing was resolved, Addison was so solidly _there_, and at the moment, that was enough.

* * *

><p>AN: Did you like it? Hate it? Please review!


	8. Real Life

**Real Life**

Mark's sleep was pierced by the insistent call of an alarm clock. He tried to roll over but found that there was something - no, someone - in the way. He propped himself up on one elbow, squinting his eyes against sleep and rubbing his hand over his hair as he remembered the last night. He felt Addison thrashing around in the blankets next to him. Eventually she extricated herself from the sheets and his legs and leaned over to swat her hand randomly at the bedside table until the alarm was silenced. The mattresses shifted as she flopped back down next to him with a groan.

"Mmm. Mark," she sighed sleepily.

"You know, if you kept your old practice in New York you wouldn't have to get up at ungodly hours," Mark mumbled somewhat indistinctly, not quite awake enough to be entirely sure of what he was saying.

Addison replied by rolling on top of him and kissing him quickly before climbing over his prostrated body and opening the blinds. As she disappeared behind the bathroom door, Mark threw his arm over his face to shield his eyes from the glaring morning sunlight that fell in long narrow stripes over the pillow. At last, after two nights and one day in Seattle, the rain had stopped.

By the time the sound of the shower shut off, Mark was sufficiently awake and was waiting for her, propped up on the pillow, his hands tucked behind his head. He watched her lazily as she bustled around the room, his eyes soaking up every inch of her as she blow dried her hair to smooth straightness and put on a black pencil skirt and white blouse with a flattering neckline and striped with a shimmering satiny fabric.

"You know I don't have to leave today," Mark offered as Addison slipped on a pair of dangerous-looking heels. "I _could _change my flight."

"No," Addison answered immediately, tucking the tails of her blouse into her skirt. "No, you can't, because I'm sober now, and there's work to get to, and planes to be caught, and real lives to be led," she said, in a tone Mark knew from all the other times Addie had distanced herself from him before he could get close enough to make her care.

_Are we not real?_ Mark wanted to ask her. She'd seemed to find him real enough when she'd called begging for him to come. Instead Mark just watched her, his eyes roving up and down the length of her body, silently thinking that any other woman would find him waiting on a bed for her to be seductive rather than a temporary complication that could be easily shipped back to where it came from.

But Addison was still talking. "Thank you, truly, Mark, for all of the… sex. I really, I- I feel much better now, I do, and, well… Now I have to go. And so do you." She paused to take a breath. "So, uh, do you want me to call you a cab to the airport?"

Mark had been nodding gravely at her monologue, slightly amused by her businesslike manner. But now she pulled on a thick black coat and finally ceased her flurry of activity to _really_ look at him. The glimmer of humor that had been growing in Mark's eyes twinkled wickedly as he surged up from the bed and put his arms around her, drawing her against him and then letting them both fall back against the covers while chuckling softly at her surprised gasp. His mouth sought hers, and for the time being, their "real lives" were blissfully forgotten.

* * *

><p>Eventually, Addison had torn herself from Mark and gone to work, leaving him with strict instructions to catch his plane, and the least heartfelt thanks he'd ever received. The sun was still out, miraculously, and Mark had no intention to get on a plane, so Mark had found himself taking a taxi to the bar across from Seattle Grace Hospital.<p>

Nestled in a rather secluded alcove of the bar, Mark watched the slow noontime trickle of customers. He was only mildly surprised when he saw Addison open the door and march straight up to him, impatience personified. Mark slouched against the back of his chair, his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, so obviously at ease in the face of her annoyance.

When she reached his table, Addison crossed her arms and glared at him, tossing her hair haughtily in a way that made Mark want to bury his hand in the red waves. "You missed your flight," she stated flatly.

"Grounded on account of bad weather," Mark drawled, giving her a look that both teased and challenged her.

She seemed to grapple with an urge to roll her eyes. "It's a cloudless sky; that happens, like, twice a year in Seattle." The corners of Addison's mouth turned up in a slightly condescending smile.

"Yeah, but there's a typhoon in New York," Mark countered. She could make what she wanted of that. "Sit down," Mark invited, nodding to the empty space next to him. "Have a drink."

"I'm not having a drink with you," Addison said testily, this time allowing herself to roll her eyes. "I am _working._ At work, not here." Mark couldn't help but notice that her tone was one that she would use when reprimanding a child.

Mark reached toward her, curling his fingers around her smooth, white hand. "Have some coffee, alright?" he coaxed gently.

"Mark-"

Her protest was interrupted when Mark called up to the bar, "Joe, can we get the doctor a coffee?"

Addison grimaced and pushed her hair impatiently behind her ear.

"_One _coffee, Mark, and then you are going to take a plane back to New York. _Today._" She wrenched out the chair across from him and sat down.

"I'll deal with that when the time comes," Mark assured her, unconcerned. "Just relax. Can you do that? Just sit down and stop _worrying_ all the time about what's going to happen next. Right now there's just you, and me, and what happens in the next hour is irrelevant."

Addison cocked her head in a way that Mark knew meant she was going to provide a rebuttal. He raised a finger and held it up lightly to her lips. She smacked his hand away and arched her eyebrows, waiting.

"You might want to catch a flight back to New York, too," Mark finished. "That's all I'm saying." Addison raised her eyebrows a bit more, and Mark nodded consent. "_Now _you can talk."

Addison leaned towards him across the table. "Here's the thing," she began, each word very deliberate. "We both _really _enjoy each other. Before and now, again, and I think that's a healthy release."

Mark tried not to smile at the sincerity with which she was delivering this ridiculous speech, and his attention wavered, drawn to the way her hair came untucked from behind her ear, falling loosely past the side of her face and curling softly against her long, white neck that curved down into the smooth line of her clavicle. Mark's eyes smoldered as her raised his hand and brushed the strands of hair back, permitting his fingers to trail along her cheek and he did so.

"I- I think it's healthy for- for- everybody… involved," Mark's smile widened as she stuttered under the touch of his hand, and he stroked softly across her porcelain cheek again as color began to rise to her face. Addison was continuing, "And, um, but I do think that just because I made what can only be considered a… a transcontinental booty call -" Mark's hand slid down to rub her shoulder "- doesn't mean that we should be trying to make something out of this. I- we- I mean- stop _doing _that!" Addison burst out suddenly, slapping the hand that still massaged her shoulder.

Mark gazed at her, adoration and lust shinning in his eyes. "_Why?_" he asked in wonderment, withdrawing his hand.

"Because I can't _think_," Addison hissed at him, leaning towards him. Mark could feel her breath on his face.

"We're good together," Mark said in a low, gravelly voice.

"We aren't," she insisted. "You have to go home."

"Come back with me," Mark said quickly.

"You're insane," Addison accused, leaning even closer. "I'm not going back-"

Mark suddenly leaned in, closing the gap between him, wanting only to feel her lips on his. She pulled back rapidly and glanced away, visibly irritated.

"I'm not going back," she said, her voice angry now.

Mark was put off now, too, angry that she called him across the country on a whim and then brushed him aside the moment he became inconvenient. "Because it was just about sex?" he challenged seductively, his blue eyes steely and intense, no humor in his face now, only passion and sincerity.

Addison opened her mouth to argue back but no sound issued from it. She paused, seeming to be surprised at her own speechlessness, and Mark took the opportunity to tilt his head and lean gradually in. This time she took a shaky breath and moved towards him, too, and Mark closed his eyes, his whole body tingling in anticipation-

"Ooh!" Addison gasped in a high-pitched squeal, slapping the side of his face lightly and springing back before cupping her hands over her mouth in surprise.

Mark couldn't help but break out in a broad grin at her lack of willpower to resist his advances. She glared at him with unbridled fury and a touch of disbelief at his audacity before standing abruptly and snatching her coat from the back of the chair she'd been seated in.

"Okay, well, goodbye."

The smile faded from Mark's face. Despite all of it, everything he'd tried, she didn't want him. Mark forced himself to see her as just another woman so that he could answer her as casually as she'd spoken to him. He managed to say, "Goodbye," in the perfect offhand manner, but he couldn't muster the dignity to keep his eyes off of her as she left the bar, her hand tucking in her blouse neatly and then smoothing over the back of her pencil skirt. Mark pressed his lips together in disappointment.

Halfway to the door she glanced back at him without pausing, and when she saw him watching, gave a barely discernable shake of her head before leaving the door. The bells sounded hollow as they tinkled behind the shutting door, and Mark cast his gaze down at the dirty bar table, wondering why he had been stupid enough to think that Addison had ever wanted him.

* * *

><p>AN: I hope you all liked this chapter! I'm not getting that many reviews - please give me some feedback. Should I even continue this? I want to know what you all think! Thanks for reading.


	9. Home Is Where the Heart Is

A/N: Alright, I generally make it a rule not to put Author's Notes before the actual story, but I'm making an exception here because I want to make sure everybody reads this. I am getting literally no reviews, which can only lead me to believe that my story is getting worse. So please, review the chapters and give me some feedback, because I'm considering discontinuing this story due to lack of reader interest. Now, sorry for the long monologue. Enjoy the next chapter!

* * *

><p><strong>Home Is Where the Heart Is<strong>

Stepping into the hospital that he'd only been in once before, Mark felt more at home than he had since Addison had called him to Seattle - more at home than when he'd lain next to Addison in her bed and felt her warmth, more so than their last conversation in Joe's bar, and certainly more at home than he'd felt this morning in the barren hotel room he was living in until he found a more permanent place at which to stay.

After Addison had left him in Joe's Bar, Mark found that he no longer ached to be in New York. Before, there had been hope in New York. Hope that Derek would forgive him, hope that Addison would see that she had lost her claim on Derek's heart and want his instead. There was nothing left for him there. Seattle, for all its rain, had a life for him, and so Mark found himself selling his New York practice, buying an umbrella, and taking Meredith's advice. As she'd suggested to him, Richard Webber did have a place for a Head of Plastics at Seattle Grace, and now Mark was a doctor there.

As he walked up to the conference room in which he'd been told to meet the Chief, Mark watched keenly for any blue-clad doctors he recognized from his previous visit, hoping for Meredith. As much as he wanted to repair his relationships with Derek and Addison, he craved a friendly face among the strangers rather than one filled with contempt.

He found the room with some difficultly in the massive hospital, and saw the Chief waiting with an important looking man. "Dr. Sloan, this is our head of legal," the Chief greeted him. "You've just got one more form to sign, and then we will officially welcome you as the new head of Plastics here."

Mark signed the form, and the Dr. Webber held out a white coat, monogrammed with his name and title. He accepted it and pulled it on before shaking hands with both men. Mark looked up, through the window of the conference room, just in time to see Addison catch sight of him. He couldn't hear what she said, but whatever it was caused Derek to look up, followed by the turning heads of the interns standing just outside the room. Their stricken faces spoke louder than the words that drifted through the glass.

"Is that…" one intern, the boyish looking one, started to asked before trailing off.

"_McSteamy_," another one - Dr. Yang - confirmed, grinning triumphantly.

Mark was just turning away from the hostile faces of Derek and Addison when the boyish intern's attention was suddenly riveted by something Mark couldn't see, and the flash of an explosion filled the corridor with blinding white light an instant before the intern shouted urgently, "No, Mr. Sullivan, don't light that!" The hallway became chaos as the Chief, Mark, and the cluster of interns all rushed towards the man who had been foolish enough to light a cigarette in front of his oxygen tube.

The first few moments flew by in a blur of activity as all emergency procedures did - tiny details standing out in astonishing clarity while everything else was fuzzy, out of focus, obscure. The charred, blackened face of the middle-aged patient - the resident ordering her interns into action - the sterility of the white gauze that Mark pressed against the raw, grotesque skin of Mr. Sullivan.

The uneasiness that Addison's and Derek's glares had incited was forgotten as Mark fell into a role that was the same regardless of where he was or whether it was raining or not. There was a patient, and he was a doctor, and Mark experienced a feeling that he'd forgotten in the past Addison-filled week. For as long as Mr. Sullivan needed him, Mark knew who he was and he was _sure_, which, it it's own way, was a kind of finding of a home.

"Looks like you didn't come here a moment to soon. No other plastic surgeon in the country could make something out of what's left of Mr. Sullivan the way you can," the Chief commented during the quick tour of the hospital he was giving Mark.

"Don't get you're hopes too high," Mark cautioned, wondering if his fame had set an unattainable precedent. "I'll do what I can, but with burns that deep? He'll never look the same."

Dr. Webber shook his head slowly. "I wouldn't blame you if you couldn't do much for him. What kind of idiot lights a cigarette in a hospital."

Out of nowhere Derek appeared, and Mark closed his eyes briefly, knowing the moment of confrontation would come at some point, but wishing that it could be put off for at least a few more hours. Even behind his closed eyelids, all Mark could see was an afterimage of Derek and his stupid, perfect hair.

"Apparently people do idiotic things all the time," Derek said, and Mark opened his eyes to see that Derek was talking to the Chief, not him. _Was that it, then?_ Mark wondered. _Did his ex-best friend think that they could work together and not even speak?_

The Chief put his hands on his hips and turned away to walk up the nearby staircase, and to Mark's relief, Derek followed, calling after him.

Mark turned his gaze away from the retreating backs of Dr. Webber and Derek, and the relief vanished as Addison seemed to materialize in front of him out of nowhere.

"I thought you were going back to New York," she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I thought it was time for a change," Mark said, making an effort to sound offhand.

"You can't be here."

"Sure I can," Mark said, keeping his voice slow and smooth, trying the tone he used when reassuring a worried patient about a surgery. "It was easy. Sublet the apartment, sold the practice."

"You cannot come here and destroy the _respect_ that I have _earned_. I was the woman who cheated on the wonderful neurosurgeon with the perfect hair. I'm not that person anymore, and your presence destroys who I am." Addison crossed her arms more tightly and glared.

Mark was taken aback at the unexpected accusation. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he'd always known that he cared for Addie more than she ever cared for him, but did she really believe that he regarded her as callously as that? He'd come for her, for Derek. How could she not know that?

"Why are you here?" Addison hissed at him.

"Why do you _think_ I'm here?" he asked, slightly perturbed.

"This," Addison said, gesturing vaguely at the length of his body. "This is why I left you."

Mark narrowed his eyes at her and pointed out, "I thought you left me for Derek."

Addison seemed at a loss for words, but Mark never discovered what she would have come up with to distance herself from him further because Meredith, who was standing nearby with a small audience of interns, suddenly snatched her hair away from her face, leaned over the counter of the nurses' station, and vomited.

"Oh, this is just perfect," Addison sighed as Derek left the Chief and rushed down the stairs to Meredith. "An adulteress love child."

"Goes along with an adulteress sociopath," Derek muttered, his voice like ice. Mark groaned quietly as Addison stalked away and the attention turned to Grey. Thankful for the diversion, he slipped away amidst the commotion to round on his first set of patients. As he left the scene behind him, he chuckled quietly to himself that his fellow dirty mistress never failed to pull through for him when things got rough.

Mark finished rounding on his patients and was coming up outside Mr. Sullivan's room, where he saw a resident leafing through the patient's chart. She glanced up as he approached her, but rather than giving him the chart, continued to look through it. "That's my patient's chart," he said, holding out his hand for it.

"Yeah, I know, the short woman said, still not looking at him. "I was checking on the Sullivans, and how is he doing because-"

Mark, thoroughly bewildered at her behavior, raised his eyebrows and asked in confusion, "You are?"

"Dr. Bailey," she said, seeming as surprised as he was. "We met this morning." She was looking at him as though there was something wrong with him. "I was the resident on Mr. Sullivan's bypass," she reminded him.

"Well, I don't need a resident on this case, so…" Why did she still have his chart?

She widened her eyes. "Excuse me, I wasn't asking to be your resident. I was asking how my patient was doing," she pursued.

This was not the first time Mark had been caught wrong-footed during the day. This certainly was a strange hospital with a very vague pecking order. "He's not your patient anymore," Mark said simply, plastering a charming smile on his face to cover his confusion, and escaping from this oddly intimidating resident, only to do something he was looking forward to less and less. He wished that he hadn't sent his overly-eager intern off for coffee so that it could be Karev rather than himself seeking out Derek for a consult.

Mark was unsurprised to find Derek leaving Meredith's room. "How's your little intern there doing?" Mark inquired cautiously.

"Oh?" Derek said coldly. "You've got designs on her, too? My wife wasn't enough? Leave, Mark. And she's not my 'little intern'."

Mark wished he hadn't made a personal comment. "I need a neuro consult." Mark fidgeted with the edge of the scrubs that he'd changed into, feeling like they were still awkward kids on the playground asking for a turn on the swing set.

Derek glared. "Fine."

"Fine," Mark answered, somehow making the word into a childish retort.

Minutes later, Derek was in the burn unit recommending a night of observation before surgery.

Mark raised one eyebrow at Derek's judgment and asked quietly, "Is that really necessary, Dr. Shepherd?" Derek cast a glance at Mrs. Sullivan, who was watching anxiously, twisting her hands together. He stepped away from the gurney and came close enough to speak more privately. "The longer we wait, the greater risk of infection."

As Derek protested, Mark marveled that even in the doctor-patient setting, Derek didn't fail to convey the depth of his hatred merely though the tone of his voice. "Why did you ask for a consult if you'd already determined a course of action?" Derek asked, his voice tight.

"Because I thought you were good enough at your job to put aside your personal issues," Mark growled.

Mark knew he was walking a tenuous line, but half of him w_anted_ Derek to punch him as he had when Mark had first arrived in Seattle, because that would have been better than Derek's calm, rational hatred. His train of thought was disrupted when the patient's wife entreated him to just fix her husband's face. Mark raised his eyes to meet Derek's with an unveiled expression of gloating triumph. Derek spun around and stalked out of the patient's room. Mark exhaled in a huff and followed on Derek's heels, the family of Mr. Sullivan forgotten.

"Derek," Mark tired to speak. Dr. Shepherd walked faster, pulling on his white coat with more force than was necessary. "Derek!"

"_What?_" Derek paused, still keeping his back towards Mark.

"If what happened between me and Addison is so unforgivable," Mark said, his voice low and angry, "how do you justify what happened between you and Meredith?"

Derek yanked the collar of his coat straight and looked piercingly at Mark. "What are you _talking_ about," he spat furiously.

Mark clenched his hands. Always, always, Derek was the one who was right. When they were children and now, it was still the same. Derek was perfect, while he, he had never been more than the lonely charity case Carolyn Shepherd was generous enough to accept. Derek had always been McDreamy, even before a group of ridiculous interns had coined the name. Mark was still the dirty mistress. For his whole life he'd fought to be as good as Derek - to have Derek's family, his hair, his charm, his skill.

"If you want me to be the bad guy, fine," Mark snapped. "But I'm not the only bad guy here, Derek. You and me? We're just the same." It was liberating, to finally say those self-righteous words - liberating until he stopped and looked into Derek's eyes and saw that he had said the one thing that could possibly make Derek loath him more than he already did. Left standing there alone, Mark rubbed his hand over his face and wondered how he had only damaged things when all he had wanting in moving to Seattle was to win Derek back.

He sighed and walked to the nurses' station, hating himself for letting himself argue with Derek again. When he heard the phrase "McSteamy" in the background, he gritted his teeth and sighed. Meredith's endearing name had taken on a life of it's own, and it ensured that nobody at the hospital saw him as anybody more than the whore who slept with Derek's wife. He closed his eyes, wondering if Seattle would disappear if he kept them shut long enough.

"McSteamy! Woo hoo!" the voice called again. This time Mark turned towards the sound, and he saw Meredith sitting up on a gurney, waving animatedly at him.

He strode towards her, his face lit up. "Is that what you're calling me now, 'McSteamy'?" he asked even though he was far too well acquainted with the name. He felt like his face might split from smiling so broadly after such a long time.

"Yeah, but I don't think you're s'posed to know that," she drawled.

Mark decided that he enjoyed the drug-laden Meredith almost as much as the sober one. "How's my favorite dirty mistress ?" he asked, oddly happier than he'd been in a long time.

"Haven't ya heard?" Meredith asked. "Now I'm an adulteress whore."

Mark laughed, a real laugh, the kind that started deep in his throat - somewhere near his heart - the kind of laugh he hadn't had since he could remember.

"I knew you'd come back to Seattle!" she chirped happily.

"Well, you know," Mark said, leaning in towards her as he whispered conspiratorially, "We dirty mistresses need to stick together."


	10. Meet Your Match

**Meet Your Match**

Mr. Sullivan's surgery was over, and Mark was in the kitchen sipping a coffee when his pager beeped. He glanced at the small screen, and saw that Mr. Sullivan was coming out of anesthesia and asking about his face. As Mark stepped into the elevator and waited to reach the floor of the burn unit, he contemplated the very first surgery he had performed at Seattle Grace. Both that patient and Mr. Sullivan had needed a new face from him. Jacob had deserved a face as much as anybody. Shaun Sullivan, on the other hand - he'd had, in the words of his wife, "such a good face," and he'd thrown it away for a smoke. Mark wished that he was going up to see Jacob instead of the middle-aged car salesman.

When he was followed into Mr. Sullivan's room by Dr. Bailey, whose name he'd made sure not to forget this time, he became even more reluctant to speak to Mr. Sullivan. New York had never been like this for him. Everybody he saw there was just a patient, just another surgery. What had this hospital and the people in it done to him?

Mark gave Bailey a cautious, measured stare before flipping shut the patient's chart and turning to the man on the gurney and his fretting wife to update them on the prognosis.

"He'll have his face back?" Mrs. Sullivan prompted when Mark had nearly finished.

"Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan," Mark said, realizing for the first time how naïve they truly were, "Your face may never be exactly what it was. Even if everything goes perfectly well, there will be scarring." Mark knew he was being more distanced than was warranted towards the family, but he couldn't keep Jacob out of his mind.

"But he's a salesman," Mrs. Sullivan said again, as if it was a mantra she clung to. "He has such a nice face."

Dr. Bailey was looking expectantly at Mark, he could feel her powerful eyes on him; she was waiting for him to reassure Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan, but his throat seemed unable to function as he remembered the dark lines penciled across Jacob's sunken face. In another corner of his mind Mark noticed vaguely that Bailey made him feel like her intern, not her attending.

Mark snapped out of his reverie as Bailey took control and her fierce tones cut into his thoughts. "You know as well as I do," she was saying, "it's not about what you look like. Or your job, or how _successful _you are" - here her eyes cut to Mark meaningfully - "It's about having people in your life who you love, a_nd who love you_." Bailey's eyes were boring into Mark's soul.

Mark dropped his gaze. Miranda Bailey may be only a resident, but here she was, speaking with an audacity and self-carriage with which nobody in New York would have dared address him. _And yet_, Mark realized painfully, _she was right. What good were fame and arrogance and a pretty face? It wasn't enough to earn Dr. Bailey's respect. It wasn't enough to deserve Addison's love. It wouldn't win his best friend back. _He watched Bailey's hand clasp Mr. Sullivan's firmly and wondered if he would ever have that, that security, that confidence in the knowledge that there was a hand for him to grasp. All day he'd wondered why Seattle Grace was so different. Now he knew. There was nothing wrong with the people at the hospital. What was wrong was_ him._

* * *

><p>Mark walked out of the building at the end of his first shift, feeling oddly lost, odd because he was a city boy - had always been one - and so Seattle should not appear so hostile as he walked to the parking lot. He paused halfway to his car as the neon lights in the window of Joe's bar across the street caught his eye. Even though he wasn't in the mood to drink or socialize, he turned away from his car and crossed the street because Joe's warm atmosphere was preferable to the emptiness of his hotel room.<p>

As he looked around the small bar, Mark seemed to recognize the faces of some of the scrub nurses and doctors he'd met that day. It seemed that the place was a frequented spot by many of Seattle Grace's staff. After making sure that Derek and Addison were nowhere to be seen, he seated himself at the bar and sighed, Bailey's words ringing in his thoughts. _They were right, all of them. Derek and Addison. Bailey. She saw straight through him. _Mark groaned quietly and leaned forward against the counter of the bar, his hands in front of him, ducking his head.

When the woman a few seats over leaned across to him and asked in a teasing tone, "McSteamy, right?" he wanted to close his eyes until she and everybody else went away.

Instead he glanced at her briefly and said in a low monotone, "You must be a friend of Meredith's."

"Not really," she replied, her voice turning sour for an instant. Mark registered the change but didn't care enough to look or inquire. He knitted his fingers together and stared down at his hands. "Dr. Torrez - Callie," she introduced herself in a brighter tone despite his obvious disinterest.

"Mark Sloan," he said, reaching over to shake the hand she extended before looking away again, staring at the counter of the bar and remembering the last time he'd been seated on a stool at that counter - how on that day he'd clung to the faint hope that Addison would care enough to meet him there.

"Bad day?" Callie asked, sounding oddly concerned.

"You could say that," Mark answered quietly, pulling himself out of it enough to really see her for the first time, see that she was smiling at him in a friendly way, her chin propped in her hand, but that behind her smile she was sad. He was surprised that when she heard his answer she didn't probe, but just turned to take a sip of her drink.

"You?" he asked, finding that he actually wanted to know.

"Oh yeah." Her voice was emphatic and slightly bitter.

Mark looked over at her again, and this time he observed that she was good looking, beautiful even, though not in the conventional way. She had long black hair that rippled down her back in sleek, shinning curls, dark, alluring eyes, and a curvy shape. He turned towards her with renewed interest and leaned forward. "So what have you heard about me, exactly?" he asked, honestly curious now. He somehow knew that she would tell him the truth.

"Mostly things that involve the words 'dirty' and 'bad.'" Callie grinned at him playfully, and Mark tried not to see her smile as seductive.

"Right." Mark wished he hadn't asked. He didn't need to know that he'd lost the respect of the doctors before he even begun to work with them. But now Callie was looking at him, and he'd begun a conversation, and he had to say _something._ He nodded his head slowly, and said sadly, "Guess there, uh, really is no starting over, is there?"

She didn't speak, but shook her head and sighed as if she didn't need to say anything. She just… knew_._ Mark's eyes roved over her, and he shifted over a seat so that he was next to her. She certainly was attractive. "Can I buy you a drink, Callie?" he asked, smiling a confident, charming smile.

She gave him a piercing look and drained the liquor in her glass before standing and swinging her handbag onto her shoulder. Mark gave a short, bitter laugh. Of course she had judged him, what with all she'd heard. Of course she didn't want to be bought a drink by him. Did nobody want him? Even though she'd said nothing outright, Bailey had seen right through him. He had nobody.

"Not unless you have it delivered to my hotel room, because I'm off to bed."

Mark looked up. Her voice… it was low, sultry… inviting. It was the sort of thing he would say. Callie just barely smiled, and then began to walk off. Mark had looked back down at the bar when she glanced back over her shoulder and said, "You comin'?"

He turned his head slowly to look at her, in awe. There he saw a reflection of himself. Sexy, confident, passionate. Lonely. Heartbroken. She was just like him. She knew him without his having to say a word.

"Yeah. I'm coming."

* * *

><p>Mark lay next to Callie the next morning, both sprawled comfortably across her bed on their backs, their hands behind their heads. He hadn't had to pretend that she was Addison as he'd done with numerous scrub nurses in New York. She didn't have a need to talk to him. She didn't have to. She just <em>knew <em>him. Words would only dilute it.

He didn't have to look at her to know that she, too, was staring at the ceiling, and didn't have to ask to understand that she was perfectly content, that he had been exactly what she had needed.

Callie's cell phone beeped for what seemed like the millionth time since they'd arrived in her hotel, and the feeling of content that radiated from her vanished. She reached over him and took it off the bedside table, flipping it open and then sighing almost imperceptibly, frowning when she saw the number.

"That your boyfriend?" Mark asked, guessing that whoever was calling was the same person who had troubled her last night.

"I… do not have a boyfriend," she answered tightly, and so Mark knew that she was lying.

"Then why the guilty face?" he asked, not caring about the fact that she was seeing someone, but wanting to let her know that he could see through her.

Callie sighed slowly and raised her head to look at him. "You were sexier when you weren't talking," she complained.

Mark grinned and drawled, "That's funny, you know, because that's what they all s-"

"Shhh!" Callie interrupted, smacking his chest lightly and then leaving her hand there, pressed softly against his heart. "Stop talking!" And with that she cupped her other hand under his head and pulled it up to hers. Mark chuckled into her mouth as he realized again that they were indeed exactly alike.

* * *

><p>AN: So, I decided to continue this. Clearly. Thank you to all the reviewers who convinced me to keep going, because I'm so glad that I did. A special thanks to CitronPresse and Juni for their reviews, advice and encouragement. Thank you! I hope everybody enjoyed this new chapter. I'm questioning my characterization of Mark in this chapter; I'm not sure if my portrayal of his thoughts and feelings were in character. Thanks for reading, and please review!


	11. Strike Twice

**Strike Twice**

The hospital was abuzz with gossip about Dr. Bailey and her group of interns, and Mark understood for the first time the comments about how there were no secrets and no clean slates at Seattle Grace. Everywhere he went after the morning's M and M he heard the whispered words. "Duquette," "LVAD," "out of control interns." He was pleased that the mindless chatter was, finally, about something other than himself, but the commotion about the patient who Izzie Stevens had killed drowned out the gossip that was sure to have been spreading in any other circumstance, the gossip that Mark wanted to hear. Addison was divorced, and he craved knowledge of it but hated the idea of swallowing enough of his pride to ask anything personal of the woman who had made it so clear that she scorned his presence. As he heard the conspicuous clacking of Addie's heels rounding a corner of the hallway, however, he gave in and chased after her.

"Hey!" he called as he caught up to Addison.

"Hey," she glanced up from the chart she was writing in as she walked, sounding amicable enough.

"So," Mark asked, determined to be up front with her, "who got the Brownstone?"

"You heard?" She didn't seem very surprised, and slowed down enough so that Mark could walk next to her and talk properly.

"People talk around here, I listen." Mark refused to be distracted. "Who got the Brownstone?"

"It's none of your business," Addison said in a voice the was still casual and at ease, betraying the fact that if Mark pursued she would answer him eventually.

Mark paused for a moment, trying to find a legitimate reason for to care. "I left my bike in the basement," he lied, "I just want to know who to talk to, to get it back."

"Buy a new bike," Addison said curtly, sounding irritated this time. Mark looked carefully at her face, narrowing his eyes slightly as he scrutinized her expression. He could tell that she knew he was lying about the bike.

"You know this angry divorcee thing really turns me on," he said, reverting, as he always did out of habit, to an inappropriate comment when he didn't know what else to say.

Addison stopped and nodded slightly to herself, as if she knew that this unpleasant conversation would come eventually and had resigned herself to getting it over with as soon as possible. She rolled her eyes at his and set her jaw, something Mark was familiar with from every time they'd ever argued. "I got the Brownstone," she admitted. "And you'll get your bike back. When you come to your senses and _go back home_." Mark winced internally. Addison had always know exactly where to strike. Her remarks were always like that, short and simple and biting. She knew as well as he did that New York could never be his home again. Mark passed over that and moved on to search for the chink in her own armor as she began to walk away again. This time he wouldn't run after her.

"Derek took the Hamptons?" he called after her, saying the first thing that came to mind.

She stopped walking. Mark smirked slightly at his quick success, and then narrowed his eyes skeptically as he remembered. "Derek hates the Hamptons." Realization struck. "Derek gave you the _Hamptons_, too?"

Addison turned back around to face him, and Mark moved closer, so that he was right in front of her, making himself finally unavoidable. "He still doesn't know the whole story, does he?"

"No." Addiosn's voice was stubborn, her usually soft blue eyes now the color of stormy seas. _That was his Addison_.

"And as long as you don't tell him, you get to be the good guy, and I'm just the chump who seduced his wife for the hell of it," Mark said, hating that the words were true, hating to admit it, hating himself for allowing himself to become _that guy_. "Real fair." There was worlds more that he wanted to say, but he didn't trust his voice to contain them, so he spun around and stalked away, leaving her there, for the first time, leaving _her _staring after _him_.

* * *

><p>Mark was walking down the corridor, his arms full of charts to update, when the faint sound of his name caught his attention and made his head automatically turn. He looked around the corner of the hallway in the direction from which he'd heard his name, and was surprised to see Addison and Derek standing a short distance away, facing each other. "Mark and I," Addison was saying to him. "It wasn't a one-night stand, I was in love with him. Or, at least… I thought I was."<p>

Mark turned swiftly against the wall so that he was out of sight, pressing his back against the wall and breathing quickly. He knew he ought to be happy that she'd confessed their relationship to Derek, but all he could find in himself was pain that she didn't think what they'd had was real, that she was taking it back, every moment they'd spent as a couple, because she'd only _thought _that she was in love with him.

Mark noticed a cart with supplies nearby in the hallway, and he stepped behind it so that he could watch the exchange through the shelves and remain unseen.

Addison had her back to him, but over her white clad shoulder Mark had a perfectly clear view of Derek's face, shocked and hurt, as if she'd slapped him. Guilt and doubt joined his own pain as Mark wondered if he'd been right to think that Derek should know. He would have been happier in the dark.

"I wanted to believe that I hadn't thrown my life away on… a fling," Addison was saying. _Is that what I am? A fling? _Mark thought. Now Addison had found a word for it. Something more eloquent than a "transcontinental booty call." Something that could be wrapped up into one syllable and thrown around when convenient. Mark curled his hand around the metal railing of the supply cart, clenching it as powerfully as he could, hard enough to know that when he pulled his hand away it would leave a mark there.

He wanted to look away, didn't want to be there for this, shouldn't be there. It was something Addison hadn't intended for him to see. But Derek was biting his lip, and looking down, to the side, past Addison, anywhere but _at _her, and as much as Mark wanted to leave, he couldn't make himself turn away because no matter how much Derek hated him, Derek was still somehow his best friend.

Finally Derek looked up, and though Mark couldn't hear the words Derek was saying, he heard the tenor of his voice, low, barely there, as if speaking any louder would shatter him. Mark recognized it, recognized it as the same pained sound that had been Derek's voice when his father was murdered.

He wanted to do something, but knew that making an appearance now would be the opposite of helpful, so instead he sprang back against the wall, out of sight, as Derek stepped around Addison and fled to the elevator.

* * *

><p>Derek was in the lounge, seated in an armchair, his laptop open in front of him. Mark could tell that Derek wasn't really looking at it. He knew this because he'd spent the last ten minutes hovering pathetically outside the lounge, peering in through the narrow slits between the blinds, wondering if he should enter, and what he could possibly say if he did. During that time Derek hadn't moved at inch, as if by keeping still he could disappear. Mark sighed slowly, and opened the door to the lounge, still with no plan, but unable to leave Derek sitting there like a statue. If nothing else, he could provide something for Derek to be angry at, which, Mark supposed, was better for Derek than this silent brooding.<p>

"She told you," Mark said, shutting the door behind him and perching himself on a table. Derek's eyes had flickered toward the door when it had opened, then done a double take as he realized who it was. Now Derek stared blankly at his laptop again as if Mark weren't there, but nodded almost imperceptibly at Mark's words. Mark saw that he wasn't going to get an answer, but he had been aware of that possibility, and was undeterred.

"I've known you my whole life, I grew up with you, so I know what you're thinking," Mark said, watching Derek warily, searching for any flicker of a response in his too-motionless form. "That there is a year of your life wasted, trying to make it work with Addison when you could have been with Meredith."

A muscle in Derek's jaw twitched, and Mark saw that Derek didn't like him to talk about Meredith. "That you could be happy right now," Mark forged on. "That all this… everything… that you and Meredith could have had a real chance." _What's happening to me? _Mark wondered as he heard what he was saying. _I'm turning into Sydney Heron_.

Derek looked up, not directly at Mark, but somewhere in the direction of his knee. It brought his face out of shadow just enough for Mark to see the betrayal etched into the handsome lines of it. Mark fixed faces for a living. It was the one part of himself he had entire confidence in. So to know that not only could he not smooth away the tortured expression on Derek's face with a scalpel, but to know that he was the cause of it, was physically painful. Mark took a deep breath and stood, nearly finished. "Still," he said, crossing his arms and saying the words in his mind before he question them, "I thought you should know the truth. I thought I owed you that. As a friend," Mark added, meaning it with every part of who he was.

Derek finally looked Mark in the eye. "You're not my friend," he said quietly, and shut his laptop with slightly more force than was necessary before standing and walking around Mark to leave.

Mark stood there, motionless, wondering what he had left to give that would make Derek want to forgive him. He closed his eyes and crossed his arms more tightly over his chest, becoming the silent statue that Derek had been moments earlier.

It could have been minutes or hours later when Mark was vaguely aware of the door behind him opening, and cool hands putting a gentle pressure on his shoulders, sliding over his biceps and down, and slipping under his elbows to give him a soft hug from behind.

"I told Derek. That I stayed with you. But I guess you already knew that," Addison's voice told him.

Mark placed his large, warm palms over the hands that were clasped across his abdomen and found himself fingering Addison's wedding ring.

"I'm not ready to take them off yet," she said quietly, answering the question that he hadn't had to ask.

Mark tipped his head back a bit and breathed in the smell of her shampoo, the same one she used when they were living together. It was moments like these in New York during which he forgot that she was married, that she had aborted his baby, that they would never - could never - work out.

Addison's hands freed themselves from his and moved up to run her fingers through his hair as she pressed a kiss to the back of his neck. His breath caught as her fingers trailed just under his ear and he closed his eyes, savoring the moment while it lasted. Too soon, the hands disappeared and Mark could hear her crossing her arms. She was like lightning, blinding and wonderful and gone in an instant, leaving only shock and pain behind.

"Are you going to turn around? Or, I don't know, say something?" Addie asked lightly.

Mark whirled to face her so rapidly that they both nearly lost their balance and crushed his lips against hers. He could be like lightning, too.

Her hands slid up the length of his torso and Mark moaned in satisfaction as he anticipated that she would lock her arms around his neck. Instead, her hands flattened against his chest and pushed him away, gently at first, and then more insistently when he ignored them. "Wait," she mumbled into his mouth.

"_What?_" Mark snapped in frustration, pulling away. "What do you want from me Addison, if not that? What? What did you ever want?"

"I'm free now. We are free. We can take our time, and I have a hotel room that we can take our time in," Addison reminded him. "With a bed. A bed that's a lot more comfortable than the ones in the on-call rooms here." She looked up at him, a small smile on her lips and mischievous twinkles in her eyes. "Come on."

This time, Mark knew better than to expect more than a one-night stand, no matter how honest she was with Derek or what she said about "time" and "we." He was just a drug, her painkiller, and this was just a response to her earlier confrontation with Derek. Mark brought her mouth back to his despite that and kissed her fiercely, unable to let her walk out of his life without taking every chance he had to keep her at his side. He would show her that she _had _been in love with him, that she still could be. After all, maybe lightning _could_ strike the same place twice.

* * *

><p>AN: I'm updating sooner than usual, and with a fairly long chapter, so yay! I have no more chapters pre-written, though, so the next update might not be for a while. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed. It took me a while to get the end of this chapter right, and I'm still not sure if it's in character, so I hope you all think it turned out alright. Thank you for the kind reviews, please keep 'em coming! Anyway, thanks for reading.


End file.
